Censor's hands of the Internet

Proposed national legislation to censor the Internet has been postponed in
favour of a national code of conduct for the Internet industry, following a
meeting of State and Federal Attorneys-General yesterday.

The Standing Committee of Attorneys-General rejected draft legislation drawn up
by the NSW Attorney-General, Mr Jeff Shaw, which had been considered for
nationwide adoption.

The meeting effectively referred the issue to the Australian Broadcasting
Authority, in an endorsement of the online services report handed down last
week by the ABA.

"It was agreed that the way forward was to pursue talks with the industry to
create a code of conduct, and the ABA would pursue that," a spokesperson for Mr
Shaw said last night.

"The legislation will be postponed. We need to concentrate on the code of
conduct and the ABA will be handling that."

The draft NSW legislation, which had been viewed in an early form on the
Internet, had prompted warnings from Internet Service Providers that it could
lead to strict - and perhaps technically impossible - controls on Internet
content.

ISPs had criticised the legislation for imposing onerous and costly measures on
companies that would not adopt a code of conduct.

The ABA report, which proposed a national code of conduct last week as one of
several recommendations, was largely welcomed by the industry.